The field of this invention is damper assemblies adapted to be used in conjunction with air-handling units.
In the design and installation of air-handling units, typically, each air-handling unit must be manufactured specifically for each individual application. This is a result of a large number of design parameters and variables encountered in terms of providing properly treated air to various parts of a structure. Ordinarily, different temperatures of treated air are required in various parts of a building structure due to such variable thermal sources such as sunlight-window exposure, poor insulation, outside access doors, or the like. As such, each unit in the past has had to be specifically designed with a particular damper arrangement design to provide the proper capacity to each individual area to be cooled, ventilated and/or heated. After the air-handling unit is built at the manufacturing site according to design plans, the air-handling unit is thereafter shipped typically to the installation site. However, should difficulties arise in providing the proper capacities of air flow to differing areas than originally contemplated, difficulty may be encountered in readjusting the capacities of treated air to be directed to the various parts of the structure to be heated, ventilated and/or cooled. So far as is known, there are currently no devices or procedures available wherein an air-handling unit can be modified easily at the installation site without requiring removal of the air-handling unit and/or major disassembly thereof. Further, duct porting arrangements typically have to be constructed at the manufacturing facility prior to installation thereof for providing for the proper routing of air discharged from the air handling unit. The addition of post-installation ports or outlets for additional ducts is difficult and/or expensive to accomplish.
Many multi-zone unis of present have a heating bank and a cooling bank wherein heated and cooled air are mixed and directed to the necessary areas requiring such heated and/or cooled air. However, this requires both the heating and cooling banks to operate simultaneously at all times which can result in the wasteful and inefficient use of energy. In attempts to eliminate this waste, devices such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,847,210; 3,508,604; and, 3,635,245 as well as Italian Pat. No. 611,360 to Gini, utilize various structures to accomplish this end. While the utilization of an ambient air zone in conjunction with heated air and cooled air zones for providing air at a proper temperature is not new within the art, the mechanisms and structure for accomplishing such vary significantly and most are complicated, expensive, difficult to manufacture and exacting devices. So far as known, none of the prior art discloses a simple, inexpensive mechanism capable of being easily assembled at the installation site of the air-handling unit and including features allowing for the simultaneous control of the mixing of cooled or heated air with ambient air.